Kerry Washington has some thoughts about the TV industry in 2024, and let’s just say, she’s not exactly giving it a standing ovation. More like a slow clap — and not the good kind.
The 47-year-old actress, who has basically achieved “iconic” status, had her show UnPrisoned locked up after just two seasons. Yes, two seasons — that’s 16 episodes. If you blinked, you missed it. And Kerry? Well, she’s over here giving side-eye to the whole situation.
While at the Bloomberg Screentime Conference (because, apparently, that’s a thing?), Kerry didn’t hold back. She took a stroll down memory lane, comparing UnPrisoned to her monster hit Scandal. Now, if you recall, Scandal was the show that turned “white hat” into a metaphor for, “I’ll fix this, but it’s gonna be messy.” Kerry reminded everyone that Scandal didn’t exactly rocket to superstardom either. It crawled its way there, sipping coffee like Olivia Pope.
“UnPrisoned got the boot after 16 episodes,” she said, probably with the exasperation of someone who just found out their favorite coffee shop stopped serving oat milk. “That’s like less than ONE season of Scandal!” Kerry’s not wrong. Scandal took a solid two seasons — about 40 episodes — before people stopped going, “What’s this show again?” and started going, “OMG, Scandal is life!”
She added that Scandal didn’t even have a glamorous start. It was a midseason replacement — like the TV version of getting called in to sub for the headliner. “We were on the bubble until the end of the second season!” she said, like a proud survivor of TV’s Hunger Games.
And when it comes to UnPrisoned, Kerry and her team were basically out here banging pots and pans, hoping for more episodes. But apparently, the powers that be said, “Nah, we’re good.” It was like trying to get a friend to commit to brunch plans — lots of enthusiasm at first, and then… crickets.
Kerry was gracious (because she’s classy like that), saying, “Not everything’s gonna be Scandal.” Which, TBH, is kind of like telling yourself, “Not every pizza is gonna be as good as the one from that place down the street.” True, but still painful. She acknowledged that they could’ve made different choices with how the show was “put into the world” — basically a polite way of saying, “Y’all could’ve hyped this up better.” But in the end, Kerry’s all about collecting those “nos,” like Pokémon cards, and moving on to the next big thing.
Because let’s be real, she’s Kerry Washington. There’s always a next big thing.